Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
He wanted her.
That was the problem.
It had been a problem last week and it grew with every second he spent sitting with her on the couch.
With every minute he talked to her, it weighed more heavily on him.
With every hour spent with her, it became increasingly complicated.
With each day that he stopped thinking about what she had done and instead focused on what he wanted to do with her, it grew more unbearable.
He understood it as little as he had back then, but everything about Lilly drove him crazy. In the best way. Her smile, her smell, her rough fingers, her enthusiasm for her job, her patience, and the love she showered on Delfina.
She was a good mother and, shit, he had the feeling that she was a good person too.
All evening, she had been the Lilly she’d been back then. Fearless yet tense. Funny, yet thoughtful. Loving and mischievous.
Sex appeal clung to her like a puck to a stick.
Her eyes shone brighter when she talked about something she was passionate about.
When she smiled, she lifted one corner of her mouth higher than the other, and she gave him that cool look whenever she thought he deserved it.
She wasn’t trying to be sexy, but that almost made things worse.
Thanks to Christine, he’d become immune to women who deliberately tried to seduce him for a long time.
But a woman who spoke her mind and didn’t back down when he practically invited her to with every gesture and word?
Who only stretched because her neck was stiff, not because she wanted to show off her breasts?
Although she undoubtedly did. And could she stop constantly shifting her position so that the stretched-out collar of his old t-shirt kept slipping off her bare shoulder? And even worse…the hem up her legs?
She looked so incredibly soft next to him — and he wanted it hard.
Fuck, no. He wanted to stay hard. Shit, that sounded wrong too. He shouldn’t even think about hard because, if he didn’t stop, he would get hard.
God, it was irresponsible of him to have gone so long without sex. His physical reaction overrode his judgment. He felt her knee against his thigh, as if soft fingers were sliding down his chest, further and further.
Until yesterday, he’d believed that knee contact wasn’t particularly hot — but apparently, that depended on the owner of the knee.
He turned his head and noticed Lilly looking at him. Probably because he’d been silent for far too long. She looked at him somberly, but warmly with her gray eyes, nervously fiddling with the hem of his shirt, which he should never have given her.
It was too intimate.
Everything between them was too intimate, despite his anger, even though she should have been a stranger to him by now.
“I don’t know how to deal with you, Lilly,” he whispered because the situation wouldn’t improve with further silence.
He did want it to improve. He didn’t want all the emotions churning inside him.
He wanted a friendly distance. Perhaps he had to be honest to achieve that.
“This never happens to me,” he explained slowly.
“I get along with everyone in every situation. God, I even have friendly conversations with my ex-wife and she’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
But when you’re around…” He hesitated, searching for the right words, but found only a thousand wrong ones, so he left it at: “…it’s too much. ”
She bit her cheeks from the inside so that her full lips parted slightly. “Too much of what?”
“Too much of everything.”
“You mean anger because you think I kept Delfina from you,” she said softly.
“That too.” He leaned back, immediately wishing he hadn’t. His weight caused the cushion to sink and Lilly involuntarily slid even closer to him, although she didn’t seem to notice. She just stared at him and waited, as if she wanted to give him enough time and space to say more.
As if it was important to her to hear what he had to say.
“You know what’s ridiculous?” He cleared his throat.
“I’m not just angry because I missed her first nine years.
A small part of me is also angry at you for…
ruining our night together.” He laughed dryly.
“I thought of you so often and it made my bad days better. It gave me hope that perfection actually exists. And now…I’ve lost faith in it. ”
She swallowed audibly and her eyelids fluttered as if she wanted to lower her gaze, but fought the urge.
“I lost faith the morning after, when I saw on TV that you were married and loved your wife,” she replied coldly. “I felt like you’d been putting on an act all evening, just to get me into bed — and I’d fallen for it.”
He sighed heavily and his shoulder brushed against hers. “That wasn’t my intention. I certainly didn’t plan on ending up in bed with you.”
“You say that now, but what the hell was I supposed to think, Austin? You didn’t tell me you were a rich hockey player, or that you had a wife waiting for you at home!”
He rubbed his hands over his thighs. She was right. The admission hurt because he liked being the man who did everything right, but she did have reason to be angry with him.
“To be honest…I forgot that I was technically still married. We’d separated two weeks before and that was the day I had decided to file for divorce. And then I met you and all my problems seemed like an episode from another life.”
“You forgot, despite that we talked about your wife?”
“Not despite, but precisely because we talked about it. It suddenly seemed infinitely far away. Only you were still close.”
She shrugged as if trying to shield herself from his words, but she didn’t contradict him.
Her gaze carefully scanned his face as if to make sure he was telling the truth, before she murmured, “What happened? The next morning? Why did you want to file for divorce that evening, and then suddenly it became, we love each other and are giving it another go?”
His diaphragm tensed and he shook his head gently. He wished he never had to speak of it again. Instead, he whispered, “You look tired. You should go to bed.”
“I’m tired, but bed never seems to be a solution.”
“Why?”
“Because life is exhausting,” she murmured, closing her eyes.
“Because I have so much on my mind, so many worries, that I fall asleep late and have trouble staying asleep. And I’m a morning person, so I definitely don’t get enough sleep.
It’s such bad timing to want to open a shop and do it all while… ” She hesitated. “…coping with you.”
A smile stole across his lips. “Is that what I am? Something you have to cope with?”
“I think, above all, you’re something I’ve never been able to cope with.” She smiled, struggling. “I’ve been trying for ten years, but I’ve never quite gotten over the fact that something so sweet and wonderful could turn bitter the next morning.”
His throat tightened. He had spent the last week thinking only about what she had done…and hadn’t considered that he might have hurt her back then.
And the thought that the evening had been just as important to her as it was to him…well, it didn’t help at all. His shoulders stiffened again, making him painfully aware of every movement of her body, making him breathe in and smell only her…
“You know, I would sometimes dream that you would show up and tell me that what we had was love at first sight and that you couldn’t live without me,” she said, amused, staring down at her hands while he could only look at her.
His mouth went dry and he wished she would stop talking immediately — or never.
“But I’ve always been a dreamer and when it came to Delfina, I had to be realistic.
So, I pushed the evening and you out of my mind as best I could because it was merely wishful thinking on my part and that the evening wasn’t important… ”
“It was important. Though I think it was lust at first sight. Not love,” he whispered, his voice strangely husky.
But he couldn’t and wouldn’t let it go. Perhaps because he still clung to the idea that while his life after his parents’ death might have been hell, there had also been good.
And Lilly was one of the good things, no matter what had happened since then, so…
“I think for me it was both,” she replied with a smile, her voice a mere whisper. She looked up, as if she wanted to share that personal joke with him…and the smile slowly slipped from her face.
Maybe because he wasn’t smiling. Maybe because he was openly staring at her.
Maybe because he didn’t find it funny, but rather her words felt like hooks in his heart, his lungs, and his hands, dragging him back to that one evening.
Back to that one moment when he had looked at her and thought: I might like making her laugh even more than playing hockey.
And he no longer bothered to hide his emotions.
His gaze slid to her lips and back to her eyes. The air grew thick. His whole body grew heavy. His muscles protested even though he didn’t move, as he heard Lilly’s breathing quickening and saw the pulse in her neck racing.
Austin dug his fingers into his own legs, afraid they would otherwise take what they wanted. He pressed his back into the couch, yet couldn’t slide away.
He could only watch her as the moment crackled between them like a fire that hadn’t gone out in ten years. Until he couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything, until he…
“Back then,” Lilly croaked, sliding away from him so hastily that she slammed her knee into his hip.
“I’m talking about back then, not today…
we’re obviously two very different people…
Back then is back then and today is today.
” She trailed off and returned her gaze to the television. “Good that we talked about it.”
Good?
Was she using the word for the first time today, or why was she doing it so poorly?
Fuck.
That was the only expression that did justice to their situation.
He whipped his head around so she wouldn’t see him squinting.
“Yeah, back then,” he agreed. Even though he didn’t notice any difference.
Even though he believed Lilly was wrong.
She felt there was too much between them, but he felt there was too little.
Six iron doors and three flea markets weren’t enough between them.
Their past should have been an obstacle, but instead, it was a thin curtain that he would simply push aside as long as he knew Lilly was on the other side.
God, why didn’t he learn from his mistakes?
“You know, I think it’s okay if you want to spend time alone with Del,” Lilly continued, her voice artificially cheerful. “She seems comfortable. And as long as you only take her during the day, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Thanks,” he responded stiffly. That was the last thing he was willing to say.
They remained silent and continued watching the videos…and Lilly fell asleep during the video of Del’s seventh birthday. She slid down the pillow, her head resting on his shoulder, his t-shirt pulled down over her knees as if trying to hide as much skin as possible.
Austin didn’t move. Any friction was too much and every touch was a new memory he didn’t need.
He let his gaze wander over her, over the dozens of light strands that had slipped from her braid and fanned out around her round face. Her pale eyelashes resting on her soft cheeks. Her hand resting directly on his thigh.
She was still so beautiful.
He hated it.
And yet he couldn’t tear his gaze from her while something she had said crept through his mind.
She didn’t sleep well in places where she felt uncomfortable.
So what the hell was he supposed to do with her head on his shoulder?